It All Began in Monte Carlo (6 page)

She closed the cell, lifted her head and looked straight into Kitty Ratte's eyes. She was on the barstool next to her. Tesoro, who had been sleeping, bared her teeth in a snarl and Sunny quickly apologized.

“Oh, but I adore all animals,” Kitty said. And her face shining with sympathy, she reached out and patted Sunny's hand. “I get the feeling you need to talk,” she said gently. “My name is Kitty Ratte and I live here.”

“You live here alone?” Sunny shouldn't have asked such a question but alone was the first thing on her mind and it just came out. Still, the woman didn't seem to mind, and after all it was
she
who had come over to Sunny and started up this conversation on a very personal basis.

“Mostly, I am alone,” Kitty said. “I live with someone, part of the time.” She shrugged in a “who-doesn't” kind of way. “But he travels a lot and I am very much my own woman. When he is here, there are many things we enjoy together.” Then she added with a mysterious smile, “And there are many things I like to do on my own. But for you, I can tell it's all fresh, all new, this ‘alone' business.” She shook her head, giving Sunny a knowing smile. The clumsy veneers on her two front teeth gleamed white. Then she leaned forward and patted Sunny's hand again.

“Trust me,
chérie,
” Kitty Ratte said oozing feminine sympathy. “I've been there.”

 

 

Allie Ray Perrin, better known simply as Allie Ray, one of the world's foremost movie stars and America's blond girl next door, with eyes of turquoise blue, so tender they melted your heart, and blond hair that fell straight as a die past her slender shoulders, long-legged, and complete with all the assets any seriously successful movie star required, was walking through her French vineyard, somewhere between Bordeaux and Bergerac, wearing old gray sweatpants, a bulky navy sweater and sneakers. She was holding the hand of her friend Prudence Hilson, who happened to be crying. Prudence had been crying since she had arrived first thing this morning.

Allie could see the silver glint of Pru's tears in the sudden shaft of moonlight peeking from behind the storm-dark clouds. She thought it was a wonder they didn't freeze on Pru's face the night was so friggin' cold. She shivered, clutching Pru's hand tighter, as though to lend her friend strength. In the dark in front of them she could hear her dog, Lovely, a black Lab who was poor Dearie's replacement, though no dog could ever truly replace Dearie, the stray she had picked up beside the French autoroute and who had been her “dearest” friend. Not even Frankie, the pup Mac had given her but who somehow never got the hang of French country life.

Pru let go of Allie's hand and bent to pat Lovely who'd come ripping
through the long row of vines like a rocket heading into space, regardless of the two women standing in her way. Allie knew Labs were like that; you either got out of their way or you got mowed down. Staggering as Lovely smacked into her legs, Allie laughed and, to her surprise, so did Pru.

“There, you see,” Allie said, filled with sudden triumph that her desolated friend had actually been made to laugh for the first time since she had arrived. “Everything's okay. Life goes on. You can be ‘You' again, Pru. All you have to do is try.”

Pru's sniff echoed through the silent vineyard, row upon row of naked branches months away from the fresh pale leaves of spring, and even longer to the heavy bunches of fat grapes that Allie was hoping one of these years might bring her own
Appellation d'Origine Contrôllée,
giving her brand-new wines a leg up in the very competitive wine market.

“ ‘Silent Night,' ” Pru said sadly.

“That was last night. Christmas Eve.” Allie inspected a mangy-looking rosebush at the end of a row of vines, planted there to catch the first bugs so she might spot any pests early, before they could get as far as the grapes.

“Oh my God, I forgot, it's still Christmas Day.” Pru began to cry again, a loud tearing sound that made Allie shudder and brought the dog running anxiously back, climbing up on Pru and licking her face.

“Labs are like worried mothers,” Allie told her. “Always there to comfort you when you fall down. And you have fallen, Pru, but it's not the end of the world.”

“Oh yes it is.” Pru stopped and peered shortsightedly at Allie. “And it's my own fault.”

“Well, not totally,” Allie said cautiously, though she had to admit Pru looked like hell: overweight, dowdy, unmade-up and miserable. For a guilty minute she couldn't blame the husband for trading Pru in for someone who in fact, Pru herself said, looked the way she had looked not so many years ago.

“It was my fault,” Pru wailed again. “He was away so much, I was so lonely, no children, not even a dog like Lovely.”

“You had friends,” Allie insisted.

“
His
friends. Come the divorce guess where all of them will be.”

Allie knew what she was talking about.

“So he fucked her, and I ate to get over it,” Pru said in a flat kind of voice that admitted her problem and that there was no solution. “I ate myself out of my clothes, then I bought new ones, then bigger. It got so I couldn't even get into normal underwear and had to go to a special store to buy the big ones, you know the granny pants we always laughed about when we were girls.”

“But you were always
pretty,
” Allie said loyally. Pru had been her friend since high school—and that was an era Allie no longer wanted to think about. She'd had her own battles to get where she was, to leave Mary Alison Raycheck, the poor kid from Texas, behind and turn herself into Allie Ray, the movie star, and then to have the strength to give it all up, all that fame, all that success, all that money. Everything comes with a price and Allie had paid hers. But now she had found that girl again, found her husband again, found love and peace and the quiet life that suited her. Glancing at Pru, still staring vacantly into the Christmas night, Allie knew she had to help her. It was a given. Allie was a good friend.

“Listen,” she said, putting an arm round Pru's ample shoulders, and turning her around in the direction of the crumbling cottage she and Ron had invested with new life, as well as with a great deal of money and their sometimes acrimonious fights, but now, always, with love. “Listen Pru Hilson, you are going to get
yourself
back and that's that. No more stuffing yourself to hide the pain, no more pretending the husband is faithful, no more being lonely.
You
are in charge of your destiny, not him. I'm telling you, Pru, together we can do this.”

The eaves of the cottage were picked out in bright Christmas lights and the pine tree in front sparkled with yesterday's frozen
snowflakes, mirror balls and fake candles. The smell of that afternoon's turkey lingered in the doorway and Lovely bounded past, hurling herself this time at a short, wide-shouldered man who obviously kept himself in good shape. His hair was thick and dark with a slight wave, his eyebrows met over his sharp nose and his mouth was full and sensual. He was attractive in an offbeat way that had attracted the beautiful young Allie to him, years ago, yearning for his underlying strength, even though he had often behaved like the bad guy—
and
had done time for it. Jail time or no, Ron was her love and always would be. And she knew without any doubt that Ron Perrin loved her.

“Hey,” Ron said, leaning back against the stainless-steel fridge, arms crossed, one leg folded over the other, as he inspected the two of them. Pru Hilson looked about as bad as any woman he had ever seen, but he did not allow her to see that from his face. His expression did not change. Soft flesh rippled around her neck, covered her breasts, imploded over stomach and thighs. She was wearing a caftanlike garment in some horrible shade of red, as though in tribute to the fact that it was Christmas Day. Her brown hair hung lank and uncurled to her shoulders, and her face was a pink full moon.

Jesus, Ron thought, but he didn't say that. Instead he said, “How about a glass of brandy, girls. Looks like we all could use one about now.”

Pru lifted her head, covertly inspecting the remains of the turkey, still on the chopping block. “And maybe a turkey sandwich?” she suggested, sniffing the way Lovely was, at the edges of the meat.

Ron's eyes met Allie's. She nodded permission. “Okay,” he said. “Allie will get the brandy, I'll fix you a sandwich.”

“Thank you.” Pru took a seat at the kitchen table, simple with its blue-and-white-check oilcloth cover (easy to wipe up, Allie had told her, we're a bit messy, Ron and I). She shifted the poinsettia in its terra-cotta pot to one side, so she could watch Ron.

“With mayo please, and a bit of gravy. If there's any left, of course.”

“Of course.”

Ron busied himself slicing turkey breast. He didn't know what to make of this friend of Allie's, a woman from her murky, hated childhood, and a woman she obviously felt something for. Or had in the past, anyway. When Pru had called the day before Christmas Eve and said could she come see Allie, Ron objected. He wanted them to spend Christmas alone. It was the quiet time in the vineyard, no work to be done till spring. They were even thinking of going on a vacation, though he doubted they would make it, they were too content here, the two of them. Who would have thought a couple of years ago it would turn out like this? God had been in his heaven for them, and now Ron thought Allie felt the need to give back and help this woman from her past.

“I'm sorry,” Pru said.

Ron glanced up from the turkey.

“For invading your Christmas. I shouldn't have done it. I'll be on my way tomorrow, leave you in peace.”

Ron said nothing, went back to slicing the turkey, cutting a couple of slabs of good bread, spreading mayo thickly, he guessed that's the way she would like it; layering the turkey, drizzling a little gravy, topping it with the other slice, pressing it flat with the palm of his hand, then cutting it crossways in bulky triangles. Just like a goddamn professional, he thought, remembering the time all those years ago, before he became the big shot he used to be; the time when he was a young boy and life was tough and he'd worked his way through a few delis, a few summer hotels, a few beach clubs—until here he was fixing a sandwich for a woman who most certainly did not need the food. What she needed was food for her soul.

Allie returned with a tray of glasses and the brandy bottle and a Diet Coke for herself. She set it on the blue-and-white oilskin cloth and Ron came over and put the plate with the sandwich in front of Pru. In a flash, Lovely bounced over Pru's knee, grabbed a triangle of sandwich, gulped it down, grabbed another, fleeing as Ron
hollered and Allie broke into helpless laughter, while Pru stared, dismayed at the remains of her snack.

“Jesus,” Pru said, impressed, “that's some fast dog.”

“She just did you a favor and ate half that sandwich. Remember that,” Allie said. “Because tomorrow you and I are working out a whole new regime for you.”

“But I'm leaving tomorrow, I can't stay and be a burden to you, or to anyone. I have to work out my life myself.”

“Oh, stop it.” Allie stared exasperated at her.

Then Ron said, “By the way Allie, the phone rang when you were out. I only caught the end of the message. I didn't check it, but I know it was Sunny Alvarez. And it sounded to me as if she was in trouble.”

 

 

The hotel bar was quiet, just the Indian woman with her elegant friends, and Sunny and her would-be new friend whose bright red hair fell in fluffy bangs over her small secretive blue eyes.

Kitty put her hand over Sunny's. “I've been down that road myself, a few times,” she said, with that demure chin-down bucktoothed smile and upward glance that, Sunny thought, seemed to be her trademark. She wasn't sure she liked Kitty Ratte, wasn't sure she wanted to be consoled by her, wasn't sure she wanted to be anybody's “friend” simply because she was lonely and desperate about Mac and feeling like hell and really, truly, thought she might die.

Still she found herself saying, “Hi, I'm Sunny Alvarez,” through a large gulp of good champagne, glad after all, just to be talking to
someone.
Allie wasn't at the end of the phone; Prince Charming had disappeared in Paris, and Mac . . . well Mac was probably in Malibu, gazing out at the Pacific Ocean and wondering where she was and why on earth she had left him, when he'd just told her he couldn't marry her that's all.

“He told me he couldn't marry me,” she said flatly.

Kitty Ratte looked interested and sympathetic at the same time. The barman refilled Sunny's glass and she indicated she needed a second glass for her friend. The barman did not look at Kitty as he
put a glass in front of her, filled it, placed the bottle back in the silver ice bucket.

Sunny noticed his attitude. “Does the barman know you?”

“Ooh, I come here occasionally. It's convenient, a pleasant place for a woman alone. A woman can simply be herself here, drink what she wants, think what she wants.”

“And what exactly is that?”

Kitty's small blue eyes crinkled into pinpoints when she laughed. “What do I think? Or what do I want?”

“Both.” Sunny sipped the champagne, suddenly very interested in what Kitty Ratte had to say. For an insignificant woman she seemed pretty full of herself.

“Well,” Kitty said slowly, as though she were thinking hard about Sunny's questions. “I like to be free. I'm successful in the modeling business. I have an apartment in Cannes. I have a lot of friends. I enjoy myself.”

“You work?” Practical Sunny wondered where the money was coming from to finance an apartment in Cannes and a life alone.